Lenses, particularly those used in the manufacture of eyeglasses, are generally fabricated from a polymeric material, such as polycarbonate. While these materials are lightweight, making the eyeglasses more comfortable to wear, they are not overly scratch resistant. To address this problem, a scratch resistant coating is typically applied to the lens surfaces.
Sometimes, this coating is applied manually, subjecting the coating process to human error potentially resulting in the lens surface being unevenly coated causing distorted vision for the person wearing the eyeglasses incorporating these lenses. In addition to distorted vision, improperly applied coatings can also result in reduced scratch resistance on the lens surface. Often a dip coating process is employed where the lenses are immersed in a coating resin and then cured in an oven. This process is expensive and time consuming as the lens must be cured for several hours.
To minimize the possibility of human error, machinery has been developed to automate the lens coating process. However, these prior art machines are normally quite large and cumbersome, as well as expensive. These factors make it difficult for retail eyeglass suppliers to have such a machine in their establishments. Accordingly, in order to supply consumers with scratch resistant lenses, these retail outlets usually send the lenses to larger facilities possessing the coating machinery to have the coating applied to each lens. This increases the cost of, and the time a consumer must wait for the finished eyeglasses.
Based on the foregoing, it is the general object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that overcomes the difficulties and drawbacks of prior art lens coating techniques and machinery.
It is a more specific object of the present invention to provide a highly automated, cost effective apparatus sized for use in retail eyeglass outlets for applying a coating to a lens surface.